down the river phlegethon

He was shaped as a mole, with a hunched soft body and a sharp nose. beneath the large, balding forehead his skin had the permanent pinkening of a white man who has languished too long in the sun. he’d caught wind of my politics.
“you fucking terrorist,”
he snarled, accosting me with eyes long deadened by whiskey and cocaine. even his drawl was reminiscent of something washed out, faded, shriveled in the middle. though educated, he was wanting in both depth and wit. he was losing.
“sir..,” i set the glass down sadly. “hateful of many things as i may be, i know there isnt righteousness nor honor in violence; all dreams of such are vanity. the maggots waiting in the ground for the war dead don’t taste the difference between iraqi and american. it is all dust and vanity.”
he couldn’t answer and my words faded unheeded into the smoky air. he was deadset unreachable and i should’ve quit. but this strange desire for cruelty was rising black in my veins, hearing his prideful declarations having never seeing the horror of a human body coming undone and bleeding its life out.
i sat there quiet, dragging the remaining bourbon between my teeth, knowing that the last blood-choked cry in the saharan heat wont carry god nor dignity.
but he will not see this, and so did not deserve punishment— yet i found myself wanting to hold a mirror up to the dumb spittle exiting his frothy mouth so that he might gape at his own foolishness. some part of me wanted to play with him as a cat mocks a caught mouse, to disembowel his simple argument and stretch its oily tendrils across the filthy floorboards. it would've been easy enough; he wouldn't have been able to keep up.
and so verily weighted by these violent thoughts, i watched myself sink to his level. i turned away, held my tongue, and couldnt help but smile cause all of it aint nothing but dust and vanity.